Even before entering FENAD, the small brick-making factory, the noise is deafening. In the middle of the yard, Chevelin Nicolas, the manager, oversees operations and sometimes lends a hand sorting... Show More + sand, mixing, loading the machine, completing the production of cement blocks, and stacking them so that they are well protected from the sun—all critical steps in making blocks suitable for construction.“We chose to build this factory because the area (Delmas 32) was completely destroyed after the earthquake and we decided that the people must be able to rebuild using high-quality materials,” says Nicolas, adding “these blocks have passed the tests administered by the Ministry of Public Works.”“This Project Has Allowed Us to Expand”With 40 workers from the community, 50 indirect workers, 1,500 bricks sold daily, and up to 150,000 gourdes (approximately US$3,200) in monthly profit, these numbers truly represent a success story for a company that started out with ten workers and sold at Show Less -

It took less than a kilometer of paved road to transform a neighborhood and give it a new momentum: at the southern end of the new Nord-Alexis road (formerly called Ravine Pintade, orguinea fowl in English)... Show More + new street merchants and motorcycle-taxi drivers are calling out to customers, while young boys play basketball on the flat terrain at the other end of the street. Colored taps-taps, students in uniform walk up and down the slope, residents buy water, and workers continue construction activities on surrounding sites.A few months ago, cars and even motorcycles could not pass on the dirt road because of a large ditch and large stones blocking the way, remembers Eddy Estimé, an official in the area, whose family has been living in the neighborhood since the days when one could still hunt guinea fowl. Cars could enter the road but had to turn back after a few meters. Like many residents who had been longing for a road, when construction began in 2013, Eddy Estimé doubt Show Less -

For two hours both women crisscrossed of Delmas 32, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince on this hot day by foot. Streets and alleys are buzzing with life and traffic. There are freshly painted homes, streetlights... Show More + and a new canal system where not long ago rubble from collapsed homes had buried whole families. For Marie Carmelle Jean-Marie, Haiti’s economy and finance minister, and Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the World Bank’s Managing Director and COO, this place symbolizes recovery and hope. It shows what a country can do with the right support and international aid. “I came here only a few months after the earthquake and I am so impressed with the progress Haiti has made in rebuilding. Then, when I stood on the remains of what was a house, a home, it was tough to imagine that life could return to this place,” says Indrawati.Born on almost opposite sides of the globe, in countries that share little but a warm climate and a very high likelihood of being hit by a natural disaster, Show Less -

Different realities, similar difficultiesDenzil Thorpe, director of Social Security of Jamaica, explained how his country is developing an electronic registry of people with disabilities. “This visit,”... Show More + he said “has been an excellent opportunity to see how things are done in Ecuador to be able to replicate it.”The group leader of Haiti, Guerline Dardignac, said that her country hopes to attain achievements like those of Ecuador. “Currently in Haiti, we have no reliable data, no statistics that would allow us to identify how many people with disabilities there are and where they are. We want to make a registry to be able to develop public policy.”Cristhian Córdova, of the Peruvian National Council for the Integration of People with Disabilities, said: “In the area of disabilities, Ecuador is becoming a true laboratory for Latin America. In Peru, we have launched a pilot program to generate evidence so we can replicate the experience in the rest of the country.”While every country is diff Show Less -

March 28, 2011—Population aging is a global issue that affects a growing number of countries around the world, especially at a time when family support and other traditional safety nets have become far... Show More + less certain in the aftermath of the global economic crisis.In Latin America, for example, life expectancy has jumped by 22 years over the last 50 years and its population is now dominated by working-age adults with significantly fewer children. The region faces the prospect of rapid aging.A new report from the World Bank’s Human Development Network warns that governments and communities in the region cannot afford to be complacent about a ‘greying revolution,’ given that the next 50 years will be very different from its past half century.According to Population Aging: Is Latin America Ready?, economic growth in Latin America will be more challenging in countries with large numbers of elderly people and meeting health care, pension, and other needs will be especially difficult for low- a Show Less -

SEOUL, Korea, October 28, 2010 — Take a chilling statistic: Ninety percent of all earthquake fatalities worldwide since 1960, over 1,100,000 people, have been Asians. Even at this writing, all major news... Show More + networks are reporting a magnitude 7.5 quake off Padang in Sumatra, Indonesia. Ironically, Professor Tso-Chien Pan, Director of the Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, predicted a major quake in this region the night before at a World Bank GDLN regional conference from Seoul titled, “It’s Not too Late: Preparing for Asia’s Next Big Earthquake”.Experts know where, but not yet when, the next killer quake in Asia might strike. Some Asian megacities lying close to tectonic fault lines are showing increasing seismic activity—Manila, Jakarta, Penang, Tokyo-Kobe. And yet, few countries in the region, with the exception of Japan and New Zealand, have a proper earthquake mitigation program. Asia’s historic vulnerability to killer quakes is made Show Less -

SEOUL, Korea, October 28, 2010 — Take a chilling statistic: Ninety percent of all earthquake fatalities worldwide since 1960, over 1,100,000 people, have been Asians. Even at this writing, all major news... Show More + networks are reporting a magnitude 7.5 quake off Padang in Sumatra, Indonesia. Ironically, Professor Tso-Chien Pan, Director of the Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, predicted a major quake in this region the night before at a World Bank GDLN regional conference from Seoul titled, “It’s Not too Late: Preparing for Asia’s Next Big Earthquake”.Experts know where, but not yet when, the next killer quake in Asia might strike. Some Asian megacities lying close to tectonic fault lines are showing increasing seismic activity—Manila, Jakarta, Penang, Tokyo-Kobe. And yet, few countries in the region, with the exception of Japan and New Zealand, have a proper earthquake mitigation program. Asia’s historic vulnerability to killer quakes is made Show Less -

July 11, 2007—In a historical first, more people now live in cities than rural areas.The world’s population is now 6.6 billion, according to a new UN report, and slightly more than half live in urban areas,... Show More + the majority of them in developing countries.Between now and 2050, the report says, world population will surge by more than 37 percent – from 6.616 billion to 9.076 billion, with Asia and Africa leading the way.This report comes as cities and countries mark World Population Day on July 11 and focus on efforts to turn the challenges of population growth into opportunities.“What happens in the cities of Africa and Asia and other regions will shape our common future,” says Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund. “We must abandon a mindset that resists urbanization and act now to begin a concerted global effort to help cities unleash their potential to spur economic growth and solve social problems.”Since the growth is inevitable, Obaid says, governments Show Less -